


Did You Know Snakes Can't Form Memories?

by WinchesterWarrenSon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animal Death, Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 13:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16833631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterWarrenSon/pseuds/WinchesterWarrenSon
Summary: Nagini is a woman cursed to be a snake forever one day. Newt loves all of God's magical creatures. When Nagini can't turn back and can't remember them anymore, Newt takes care of her. Until the day he can't.(Canon Compliant unless a movie or book released or published after 2018 contradicts it.)





	Did You Know Snakes Can't Form Memories?

**Author's Note:**

> I once volunteered at an Endangered Species Day. The booth I worked at had an Eastern Indigo snake, and one of the "fun facts" is that snakes actually lack the part of the brain that creates and retains memories. They can recognize familiar scents, but they have no idea who you are, even if you've taken care of them every day, if they're a pet or an animal ambassador in a wildlife rehabilitation environment. I really like how Nagini seems to be allying herself with Dumbledore's/Newt's side of the war with Grindelwald, but I was trying to justify it with her allyship with Voldemort later. And then I remembered. So that's what this is about.

Newt held Nagini in his arms as she cried, terrified of what they knew was to come. Her body was burning with the effort of retaining her human form, resisting what she was cursed to do, to become. By no fault of her own. 

"I know it's scary," Newt said softly into her ear. "And I'm going to miss this side of you. But it's going to be okay. I'll look after you. No one is ever going to hurt you ever again as long as I'm here with you." 

They had lost so many friends and loved ones because of this accursed war with Grindelwald. In a way, this felt like losing another. 

But Newt didn't want to let go. 

Neither did Nagini. 

"Promise?" Nagini whispered, her voice shaking with fear as she felt the familiar cold set in in her lower extremities. 

"I promise with all my heart." 

A tear rolled down Nagini's flushed, human cheek as she closed her eyes and stopped fighting. 

The grip of her arms around Newt's body turned into the grip of a smooth reptile's body as she surrendered to her snake form for the last time. 

Newt then carried her back to the boat. It was going to be a long way back to his home in England from her childhood home in Indonesia. It would be cruel to apparate with her when she wouldn't be able to recall who he was or know what was happening. Besides. He felt like they both needed the spare time that a boat trip would give to acclimate to their situation. 

O Δ | 

More wrinkled than the day Nagini stopped being a human, Newt was no less adept at looking after his various creatures. Though the more dangerous ones had to be looked after by younger, but no less skilled, caretakers than he, there was one of his animal menagerie that was still only his to care for. 

"Good morning, Nagini," Newt said as he stepped into Nagini's bedroom. "I have your dinner." 

Nagini poked out her head out from underneath the bed, then she slithered over to him. He pulled out an already dead feeder opossum, then placed it on the ground near her. Nagini slithered up to it, and Newt averted his eyes slightly as she took the poor creature into her mouth and begun the digestive process. He looked back at her as she closed her mouth, smiling a little. 

"I see you've enjoyed your stuffed animals," Newt said, gesturing at the various toys that looked like they had been squeezed so tightly around the middle that the stuffing had been pushed all the way into the feet and head. 

He stayed nearby as Nagini didn't pay him much attention. He talked to her, telling her how things with Tina are, how his book writing has been going. About current events. The world. Their surviving friends. 

He knew she understood him. But he couldn't be sure if she could still know why he thought these things would be important to her. 

Snakes couldn't hold memories. Snakes couldn't think the same way humans could. 

They had completely different brains. Brains that actually somewhat resemble the shape of the human uterus and ovary system. Not exactly, of course, but the similarity can be seen, and it's an image that communicates the differences well. There was so much missing from a reptile brain that a human brain had. And that greatly affected how Nagini now perceived the world. 

All that Newt could be sure of was that Nagini did see him as a friend. That Nagini smelled a familiar scent that she took comfort from. 

That was all he knew, and that was all that mattered. That she was not alone. That she was with a friend. 

O Δ | 

Newt hadn't been gone long. Just long enough to give a talk at a school. 

Apparently that had been long enough for tragedy to strike. 

When they told him that Nagini had gone missing, he didn't want to believe them. He searched the whole house himself, not wanting to believe. 

But she was no where to be found. 

O Δ | 

He did not know how Voldemort knew her name. 

He did not know if Voldemort knew who she really was. 

All Newt knew was that he had found her far too late, as the newspaper sat on his lap, telling him the whole story about the Battle at Hogwarts. Telling him in detail how she had died. 

All Newt could do that night was cry and mourn the loss of the beautiful snake, the brave woman, and the dear friend he had loved.


End file.
